1/15/2014

L.A. Times hack Robin Abcarian has a silly column pushing the idea that the Christie bridge-closing deal is huge while the IRS scandal and Benghazi were giant nothingburgers. There is so much nonsense in her column that I can’t attack it all in one post, or I would never get to work. So for now, let’s start with one example: her absurd contention that the IRS scandal merely represented the IRS doing its job in an evenhanded manner.

No amount of reporting can change the reality for Republicans (especially Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and proud architect of pointless, politically self-serving investigations) that the IRS was trying to do its job. In some contexts, ineptitude — say, a botched hurricane response — is scandalous. [That’s the obligatory lefty link to a Web page about Katrina there. — P]

But that’s not what happened here.

Sure, conservatives went crazy after the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s famous May 2013 audit found the IRS may have flagged groups with “tea party” in their names for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.

But that’s because Issa had asked the inspector general to look only at how tea party-affiliated groups were treated. He didn’t care to know, as we later found out thanks to Democrats on his committee, that the IRS was also flagging applications from liberal groups that used terms such as “progressive,” “medical marijuana” or “healthcare legislation.”

The IRS, see, was trying to prevent groups whose work is mainly political from receiving inappropriate tax-exempt status.

See? The IRS didn’t do a damned thing wrong, and it’s only because Issa’s questions focused on the treatment of conservative groups that we heard a lot about conservative groups. That’s Abcarian’s line, and she seems to actually believe it.

Abcarian strongly implies that the Inspector General didn’t even look at the treatment of progressive groups. That is utterly and completely false, as you are about to see. I’m going to give Ms. Abcarian the benefit of the doubt and assume that she is not deliberately trying to mislead her readers.

But the problem, Ms. Abcarian, is that when you put ideological blinders on, you overlook holes in your analysis. Your passage above seems to equate the concept of “flagging” applications with the concept of those applications actually receiving extra scrutiny. Had you done a little extra research, you would have found out that there is more to it. You cite a Talking Points Memo post from June 26, 2013. Let me offer you a couple of other links, starting with this CBS News story from June 27, 2013:

At the same time, a letter from a Treasury Department watchdog to Congress suggests that while progressives were flagged, tea party groups were subject to a much higher level of scrutiny.

Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, Werfel acknowledged that the word “progressive” did appear on a “be on the lookout” (BOLO) list that IRS officials used to target groups for further scrutiny.

“The types of political organizations on these BOLO lists are wide ranging, but they do include ‘progressive,’” he said.

Meanwhile, in a letter released Thursday, J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA), noted that out of the 298 groups set aside for a closer look between May 2010 and May 2012, only six had the words “progress” or “progressive” in their names.

“In total, 30 percent of the organizations we identified with the words ‘progress’ or ‘progressive’ in their names were processed as potential political cases,” George wrote to Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Mich., the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee. “In comparison, our audit found that 100 percent of the tax-exempt applications with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names were processed as potential political cases during the timeframe of our audit.”

See, contrary to Abcarian’s implication, the Inspector General did look at all instances of improper targeting on both sides of the political aisle. It’s just that the overwhelming number of organizations actually targeted were conservative. This is even more clearly confirmed by a Washington Post article from the same day:

The Internal Revenue Service scrutinized “progressive” groups less harshly than conservative groups, the Treasury Inspector General said in a letter to Congress this week.

J. Russell George, the investigator who carried out a probe into the IRS’ targeting of groups that applied for tax-exempt status, said he did not limit his investigation to tea party groups.

“Our audit did not find evidence that the IRS used the ‘progressives’ identifier as selection criteria for potential political cases between May 2010 and May 2012,” George wrote in a letter to House Ways and Means ranking Democrat Rep. Sandy Levin.

The revelations come after Democrats seized on a set of redacted spreadsheets released this week that detailed the “Be On The Lookout,” or BOLO, criteria used by the IRS tax-exempt group to screen applications. On that list was “progressive” as well as “tea party.”

Although “tea party” applications were sent to a team of specialists that looked into potential political cases, Russell says, “progressive” groups were sent to a different team within the IRS for processing.

I know people don’t talk about this stuff around the water cooler, Ms. Abcarian, but it was not difficult for me to find these articles, and you could have found them too.

But then, that would have made it more difficult to put your hands on your hips and get all outraged, now, wouldn’t it?

These people are trying to rewrite history, but they’re leaving out the part where the facts matter. We can’t let this happen. I plan to have more on this absurd column. This is just Part One. Thanks to Dana.

It would be tolerable if it were just a “silly” column, however if you read through the comments a lot of readers read it as gospel. This makes it dangerous rather than silly. Too many people won’t do the necessary research themselves to check and verify, hence the prevailing belief that because it’s in the LAT it’s reflective of truth…

When you can deem anything that conservatives do as racist, sexist, etc., without the scrutiny of the Make Believe Media, then the truth really doesn’t matter. I consistently see the false narrative that Republicans have no alternative to 404Care, jobs creation, etc., despite the list of bills offered being available at GOP.gov—it’s just not reported so teh Narrative™ continues on.

This Robin Abcarian person now qualifies as a dinousaur at the Los Angeles Times. Perhaps a teradactyl, ‘cuz she’s always squawking and flying high above everyone, or whatever.
She’s been there on Spring Street since forever.

I remember she used to cover a lot of pop/rock music, and she was always jumping up and down in favor of any artist who wore their angst on their sleeve. Rumour has it that she would have done anything to have Kurt Cobain’s baby. Maybe she did.

Robin Abcarian has a knack for writing kooky things that by comparison would make Code Pink look like a respectable member of the local Chamber of Commerce.

It would be tolerable if it were just a “silly” column, however if you read through the comments a lot of readers read it as gospel.

It’s truly amazing to read the comments section on stories/posts in the LA Times, NY Times, Daily Beast, MSNBC, HuffPo, etc. It really drives home to you the fact that liberals really do largely live in a universe that is vastly different from ours.

She reminds me of that woman in college whom for one fleeting moment you thought would be fun to date so you asked her out, only to find out that she only ate at vegetarian restaurants that were certifiably organic from local sources and who spent the whole date yammering on about the troubles that the poor [insert your victim group of choice] were having because of those nasty [insert your oppressor group of choice].

It may well work. Even inside-the-beltway Repubs are attributing more integrity to the Obama donor who is running the investigation, who they’re all tripping over each other on their way to a microphone to say may be the most honest person in the world, than to Chris Christie, who the wolfpack is proclaiming to be toast if he lied.

She also repeated lefty line that “stand your ground” could be used to get away with murder.

The City of Glendale recently erected a bronze statue of a girl to honor comfort women, which is being opposed by Japanese groups. The LAT was deliberate in describing a minor Japanese political party opposed to the statue as favoring limited government and promoting free trades.

It’s just funny how the most transparently left wing news paper in the state would object to the Koch brothers buying their papers for “ideological” purposes.

At least no one called it a pension. It’s not a pension. Another term for military retiree pay is retainer pay. You get the big bucks (/sarcasm) because the gub’mint can recall you. Without your consent.

You’re never actually done. In my case I just transferred to the Naval Reserve Retirement List.

You want to cut my future pay, leftists? Then do away with the work requirment.

If you’re walking, and you’re not wearing pants, the burger will be cold and largely inedible by any human standard when you get out of jail.

Of course that depends on how long you’ve been in jail eating prison baloney sammiches. If you don’t have pockets into which you can place the money to pay the fine, that could be a while. But then, if you were wearing garments with the pockets in the first place, you wouldn’t be in jail.

My fishwrap reached that level of hackitude, for a week, it ignore Gates memoir, then did an editorial cartoon on Sunday, of course they trumpeted every syllable out of Clarke, O’Neil, McClellan, et al,

Ok then. When the House GOP finances the Military-Industrial Complex off vets, and pushes Amnesty despite 20% unemployment while merrily participating in continued over-regulation of small business, even as far as treating Obamaneycare with benign neglect, why is the irony invisible?

I think Hugh Hewitt is very up front about the fact that he is a solid conservative. He doesn’t sell himself as a liberal Republican, and I’ve never heard anyone characterize him as such.
He actually used to be one of Reagan’s lawyers, and considers himself to be a Reaganite.

Hopefully, no Nike shoes were used in the incident where no hookers were harmed. Or something !
(LOL)

It would have been helpful if Bob Gates had said something about Obama and Hillary, say, around that little incident in Benghazi, or at the very least sometime prior to the November 2012 election.
I realize he wanted to keep that stuff for the book, but the book income was never going to be his bread & butter income. In fact, had he spoken out in 2012, it might have created some anticipation for the future publication of this book.

On the other hand, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann are thrilled with Obama, so we ‘see’ why they sat on info that would later be published in each edition of “Game Change.”

ES, as the saying goes we’re jut going to have to disagree about Hugh Hewitt.

The thing is, I have no problem with Hugh Hewitt. I was listening to him back what must have been the summer going off on what an easy sale he’d have been for comprehensive immigration reform. If only the Republicans had held out for the fence.

It wasn’t a conservative position. But it was honest. It was respectable.

And no, no hookers were killed, maimed, or harmed in any way in the process (I love that word ‘process’) of making this comment.

54.It would have been helpful if Bob Gates had said something about Obama and Hillary, say, around that little incident in Benghazi, or at the very least sometime prior to the November 2012 election.
I realize he wanted to keep that stuff for the book, but the book income was never going to be his bread & butter income. In fact, had he spoken out in 2012, it might have created some anticipation for the future publication of this book.

On the other hand, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann are thrilled with Obama, so we ‘see’ why they sat on info that would later be published in each edition of “Game Change.”

Comment by Elephant Stone (9d30f3) — 1/15/2014 @ 4:02 pm

Which is why I don’t think Gates comes up smelling all of roses in his tell all book.

We have one of those Habit burger places, feets… perched on a corner. When I drive by the charbroiled smells remind me of how Carls Jr used to smell back in teh day, i.e., when they were still good. Watching the guys working that smoky grill, I figure 5 or 6 years before the cancer ward for some of ‘em.

Bud, you can choose to call a table a ‘chair’ because once in a while you have sat on the table, but by the same token, it is not accurate to claim that Hugh Hewitt is “up front” about being “a pretty liberal Republican” when he has never self-identified as such, and especially when his overall views do not support such a characterization.
Hugh Hewitt is a solid conservative—that’s just what he is.

We’re not trying to uncover the mystery of Bigfoot—Hugh’s views are on the air three hours a day.
Albeit, there in north Texas, your 660AM station The Answer broadcasts him tape-delayed at the ungodly hours of midnight-3AM. There’s some local guy there named John David Wells whose show has somehow preempted both Hewitt’s show, as well as Michael Medved’s show during the past few years.
Maybe that Wells guy has naked photos of the program director of the radio station. Or something !

The Defense Minister… apologizes if the secretary was offended by words attributed to the minister.” Israel and the US shared a common goal of advancing peace talks with the Palestinians. “We appreciate Secretary Kerry’s many efforts towards that end.”

Members voted 359-67 to pass the bill, which was opposed by 64 Republicans and three Democrats.

The three Democrats who voted “no” were Reps. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), Rush Holt (N.J.) and Mike McIntyre (N.C.), a centrist Democrat who is retiring at the end of this Congress.

The bill allows discretionary spending to increase by $45 billion compared to the sequester.

“True, it adheres to the budget passed in December, but that’s nothing to brag about,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said of the spending bill. “That budget destroyed the only meaningful constraint on federal spending that we had.”

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) will announce his retirement on Thursday, according to two sources close to McKeon.

President Obama won 48 percent of the vote there in 2012. Lee Rogers (D), who held McKeon to under 55 percent of the vote in 2012, is running again and had $180,000 in the bank as of the end of September.

Two local Republicans — 2012 congressional candidate and former California state Sen. Tony Strickland, and California state Sen. Steve Knight (R) — had already said they would run if he retires.

I don’t know how many of you had time to listen to the full 12 minute interview with Hugh Hewitt and Paul Ryan that was referenced above. I hope you did. Heard as a whole I felt it was a good give and take. I thought both men acquitted themselves well and with civility on a difficult subject related to our nation’s fiscal health in which there are no easy answers and there is clear disagreement within the party. I know I gained some insight from both of the men’s comments. Maybe they did, too. It was for the most part an informative, intelligent, adult, non talky point discussion. Perhaps most importantly it stands in direct contrast to, and was unlike any “policy” interview you ever ever hear when any random liberal host interviews any random and typically vacuous leftist legislator whose depth of knowledge on issues is shallow at best.

….This byzantine climate is made for rumors. Did the Fort Lee mayor — a Democrat — break some sort of implied agreement by not supporting the latest round of toll hikes? Is the bi-state giant meddling too much in the little borough’s affairs?

Is Fort Lee negotiating reasonably over joint issues like law enforcement, street-cleaning and snow removal?

And if any of this rings true, was this week’s gridlock some sort of vindictive political payback? Or was it an example of another administrative misstep? Or just one of those bright ideas that turned too ugly to face head on?